planner

## Editing CAD Vectors

The Edit | Graphic Display Window | CAD Vectors menu item opens the Edit CAD Vectors dialog box. With this dialog box, you can display and manipulate surface vectors.

Edit CAD Vectors dialog box

Surfaces selected

With the dialog box open, click on a CAD surface in the Graphic Display window to select or deselect that surface. You can also drag a box across a portion of your part to box-select several surfaces at once. Planner highlights any selected surface and shows the number of selected surfaces in the Surfaces Selected box.

Deselect

The Deselect button clears all selected CAD surfaces.

Show vectors

If you select the Show vectors check box, Planner displays a green arrow on each selected CAD surface to represent its vector.

Sample part showing two selected surfaces with vectors shown

Flip Surface Vectors

The Flip Surface Vectors button flips your surface vectors, which causes the vector arrows to point in the opposite direction. Planner then clears the selected surfaces, and they appear with the flipped surface vector the next time you select them.

Fix Surface Vectors

Some surfaces, when initially selected, may have improper vectors. A proper vector points away from the part.

Notice in this example that this surface vector is incorrect; the vector arrow points down into the part:

The Fix Surface Vectors button uses internal mathematical algorithms to correct selected surface vectors, which automatically causes the vector arrows to point in the proper direction. Planner then clears the selected surfaces, and they appear with the corrected surface vector the next time you select them.

Notice that the surface vector arrow now points in the correct direction:

To fix the surface vectors of the entire CAD model, follow these steps:

1. Display your CAD model in Solid view by selecting the Toggle Graphic Window to Solid icon () from the Graphic View toolbar.

2. Select the Edit | Graphic Display Window | Lighting, Materials menu item. The CAD and Graphic Setup dialog box appears.

3. Select the Lighting tab.

4. Clear the Two sided lighting check box.

5. Click the OK button. In the Graphic Display window, notice how some of the CAD surfaces appear dark. This is a visual indication that the surface normal for that surface is pointing in the wrong direction.

6. Select Edit | Graphic Display Window | CAD Vectors. The Edit CAD Vectors dialog box appears.

7. Click the Fix Vectors button. If the algorithm can fix all of the surface vectors, Planner changes the dark surfaces to the part's usual color, signifying that the surface vectors now point in the proper direction outside the part. If any of the surfaces remain with a dark shade, you can select those surfaces and manually flip their vectors by using the Flip Surface Vectors button.

To fix only specific surfaces on the model, follow the above procedure, but before you click Fix Surface Vectors, select the specific surfaces.

Close

This button closes the dialog box and clears any selected vectors.